eBay plans require its Australian buyers and sellers to complete all their transactions through its PayPal payments service. The only holdup? A 38-page, anonymous filing to an Australian regulatory agency, claiming the real purpose of eBay's rule change "is to substantially lessen competition in the Market for Online Payment Processing Services." The fighting-words filing isn't so anonymous anymore. An AuctionBytes reader discovered the 38-page PDF filing was created by Google.

The file had an electronic stamp showing it was generated from a Microsoft Word document titled ""ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public 2.DOC." So much for the secret jab. Google runs its own payments service, Google Checkout, and the PayPal rivalry is often intense. Last summer, Google planned a Boston Tea Party to promote Checkout to merchants during the eBay Live conference in Boston. eBay complained and, even though Google canceled the event, eBay pulled its advertising from the site for several weeks.